


Happy and Whole and Together

by Nonia



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 10:38:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/685998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonia/pseuds/Nonia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The five life-times Thorin could not find his nephews, and the one he finally did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy and Whole and Together

**Author's Note:**

> Response to the Hobbit Kink-meme prompt:
> 
> Like I said, this should be it's own prompt:
> 
> 5 times Thorin couldn't find his nephews in the modern world for some reason (they were already dead, in the army, something) and one time when they were able to finally be a happy family.
> 
> Bonus: If Thorin gets incredibly emotional when reunited, because, shit, these two DIED for him, and he loves them.

_**Happy and Whole and Together** _

He knew. He always knew. He knew every time. 

For this was his curse.

He knew he was Thorin II Oakenshield. He knew he had died in the Battle of the Five Armies. 

For his biggest fear, the gold-sickness had overtaken him. 

He knew he had sister-sons. He knew his sister-sons had died as well. 

For they fell defending him. 

He also knew that he could tell no one that he knew. 

For this world, this time, did not believe in Dwarves, Wyrms and Elves. 

He also knew, foremost, thát he had to find his sister-sons. 

For this living over and over, was both his punishment, and reward. 

 

*****

_**1) The Officer** _

It had taken him many incarnations to finally catch wind of Fili, he had thought he had found Kili once, but it had not been so. He had always made it a point to pursue careers that would allow him to travel, or have access to information. 

This time, he had made a name for himself in the world of intelligence, garnering himself a network of information unrivalled by any. It was on the brink of what they were already calling behind closed doors the World War and he caught a glimpse of a young operative’s face in a file that contained someone he almost thought was Dwalin but was not and he simply knew. The hair was short, the moustache gone, replaced by a stubble, but he knew. Fili.

He had done whatever was in his power to try and bring the young man over. His cover had been simply too deep to pull out and Thorin had been at his wits’ end. 

Eventually, he had started entertaining thoughts of deserting and simply going to the boy as he sorted out the latest Intel that had crossed his desk when a slip of paper fell to the ground. 

Frowning, both at the inconvenience and the pain in his back as he bent to pick it up, Thorin froze. It was a notice that the young man had been found out as spy and executed. 

It could not be. The world could not be this cruel. He had found him. If he had found Fili then surely he had also found Kili. It could not be. 

He did not remember much after, he could remember much broken furniture and many men restraining him. He had been discharged, deemed unfit for duty due to mental stress and Thorin had taken to wandering the world. 

The first thing he had done upon discharge was to visit the young man’s grave and to weep over his sister-son again. He had then found the boy’s childhood home, only to see it abandoned. 

The neighbours spoke to him and told him the boy was an only child and his parents had both been lost to the war as well. 

Thorin felt his heart break anew, for if Fili had grown an only child, then Kili had not been with him. 

And so he lived, and wandered, and looked for Kili but he could not find him and he feared. For he had always assumed that they were together, and happy and he would find them and maybe be happy himself for once. 

If they did not find each other, they would be miserable. And if he found one and not the other, how could he live with himself?

Those thoughts haunted him and drove him until his old age, and he lay on his death bed, in some strange city in Africa, for he had meant to head for Asia but somehow found himself there, and lamented that maybe next time, next time he would find them both. 

Happy and whole and together. 

 

*****

 

**_2) The Smith_ **

The next incarnation found him as world-renowned blade smith. He was well-known and had a good network of clients, many of whom were rich and influential, for his blades were expensive. 

He would wile away the time creating weapons to be hung in living rooms and dining areas while the ringing of blades in real wars, the blades of the Battle of the Five Armies hewing his sister-sons to death, would haunt him and make him strike the steel even harder. 

His craft took him around the world, for he would personally deliver the finished blade to his clients and would take the chance to roam and look and hope that maybe, maybe this would be the life time his punishment would end and he would find them. He would find them and they would be happy and together and he would be happy. 

Despair would start to overtake him when he grew older and still he could not find them. He had even thought he had found Bofur at one point, whilst wandering outside of a Hamleys’ but it had not been so. 

His grip weakened with age, and his back ached with use and he had known that the blade he was currently creating would be his last. Which meant he would not wander anymore and he would not find his sister-sons and he despaired. 

He had taken the blade, his finest work he had to admit, and he had travelled, this time to Sweden, to deliver the blade to the woman who had commissioned the blade as a surprise for her lover who had a love for blades and an even bigger one for bows and arrows.

Arriving, he did not expect to be paid and then asked by the weeping woman to keep the blade. She had broken down in front of him and taken away by her mother only to be told by the woman’s brother that the lover had been killed in a tragic accident. 

It was all over the news. And when Thorin went back to his hotel and looked up the news, the grinning face of the young man was inserted into the picture of a collapsed bridge and a motorcycle trapped underneath it stared out at him. The only son of a wealthy owner of a mining company.

And he had been sick, retching into the bin of his room for staring at him was Kili. His final blade had been one commissioned for Kili and he was too late to deliver it to him and find him. 

Thorin’s body had deteriorated after that, and soon he was bed ridden and weak, both in body and soul. For he had found Kili, only too late, and he had not found Fili. And it seemed they had not found each other. 

He wondered at the cruelty of the gods. He wondered at Mahal’s craft to create a soul as hardy as his to withstand all of this pain and still be able to live again and again. 

He often wondered at the endurance of the Dwarven spirit, even if his body was not Dwarven anymore. 

Those thoughts haunted him as he lay on his death bed, clutching the blade in its scabbard, and lamented that maybe next time, next time he would find them both. 

Happy and whole and together. 

 

*****

_**3) The Politician** _

His next foray into the world had been as politician. He had hoped that maybe, if he did not find them, they would find him if he exposed himself to the world. 

Every time he made a public appearance he held hope that this would be the one that brought them to him. Every time he would travel he had hoped that he would find them. 

And he also hoped that they found each other. For he could not bear the thought that they had been apart and searched like he had. It was almost too much to bear, but like the Dwarf he knew he was, he endured and looked and never gave up, for it was not in his nature. 

He involved himself in programmes involving youth, but it had been for naught. He had gained a reputation as philanthropist for the young, and it gained him attention, but never the attention he had wanted. Craved for, hoped for. 

He had even thought he had found Balin in the form of a judge only to discover it was not so. And Thorin had started to despair that this might be one of the incarnations where he would not find them at all, and not hear of them when it had all changed. 

His team had suggested bringing in celebrities to endorse his latest campaign, “No Mountain Too High” that aimed to help children reach their dreams by providing Education for as many as possible. Many names had been tossed around, and Thorin had to rely on them for advice, for he was not one to pursue the entertainment business. 

Pictures were laid on the table and one caught his eyes. A famous athlete who rose to renown during the last Olympics, his small stature and handsome features coupled with his winning of the gold in the fencing matches making him a favourite and instant celebrity.

Fili. He had found Fili. He had found Fili and he was alive. 

Thorin was adamant that he wanted Fili in the campaign, even though his team pushed for someone in a more popular sport. Thorin would hear nothing of it, and had even insisted on bringing in all of their choices to their headquarters personally, rather than interview and proposition them via Skype and email. 

Ignoring his Financial department’s protest Thorin would not be swayed, and after weeks and weeks of preparations, dates were set. 

Fili would arrive in his headquarters in exactly 9 days. 

It was 4 days until Fili was due to arrive when he was woken from his slumber by his phone ringing. Growling at his assistant for the interruption Thorin almost did not hear his assistant’s trembling voice telling him they had lost one of the celebrities endorsing the campaign. 

Thorin remembered closing his eyes and dropping the mobile phone without hearing the rest of it. For he did not need to hear it. He knew. He knew that he had lost Fili. He felt it in his bones. 

He was brought back to senses by his assistant’s frantic tinny voice coming from the speaker, he managed to hold the phone to his ear and ask, voice devastated, “How did it happen?”

He was informed that the young man had died peacefully in his sleep due to an undiagnosed heart condition and Thorin consoled himself that at least this time, his sister-son had not suffered. 

Thorin had ended the call and refused to speak or see anyone for days following. All had thought he was upset by the loss of one of his endorsing celebrities, some praising him for his compassion and others condemning him for being selfish and worrying about his campaign in the face of such a tragic death.   
Ignoring it all, he had simply caught the first flight that would take him to the young man’s grave. He found himself weeping for hours in front of the simple black granite block and when spent, and exhausted, mentally and physically, he had trudged his way back to his rented car only to freeze. 

For five paces to his right was another marker, this with a picture of a young man on it and hand written notes and cards and flowers that said that he would be missed. Thorin fell to his knees in front of the marker and felt his breath steal away from him. 

There was no mistaking that smile.

Kili. 

He found them both. In the same lifetime. He found them both too late and they had not found each other. 

Another few hours found him weeping in front of this marker as well, until he had been asked to leave for they would close the gates. 

Returning to his city, he was a broken man, and he retired from politics and sequestered himself in a small house at the foot of a mountain and simply awaited death’s claim upon him once more, his only thoughts those of a broken heart, he had found them, and it was too late, and they had not found each other. 

Would he always be too late? Would they all be separated forever? Was this his ever lasting punishment? 

Those thoughts haunted him as he finally lay on his death bed, his will asking to be buried at a certain cemetery, for if he was far from them in life, he wished to be near them in death, and Thorin lamented that maybe next time, next time he would find them both. 

Happy and whole and together. 

 

*****

_**4) The Wine Importer** _

This life found him travelling the world looking for vintages of wine in various countries. It afforded him the chance to travel all around the world at his own pace and it also allowed him to interact with people from all walks of life. 

He traded and shipped and sold his wine all around the world, and was often invited into influential homes as expert and advisor for the best wines to accompany their menus. 

Thorin would forever hope and wish that the next client to enter his office or vineyard would be one of his sister-sons, or the next client he would visit would be related to this version of his sister-sons. 

He would also hope that he would either find them before they were lost to him or not find them at all. He did not know whether he would bear the loss of them again.

And so he traded and travelled, and at one point almost thought he had found Dori but it was not so. He had almost despaired again and thought of retiring to his vineyard and leave society’s hold when a young man with curly hair walked into his office. 

The smile was not right, the eyes not so bright, the hair too curly, but this was someone who could be Kili’s brother. And Thorin found himself speaking with the boy who was sent by his father to invite him to their home, and he was disappointed to find that the boy was adopted and knew not of his true family, but was happy enough with this one. 

For ironically, Thorin had developed excellent skills in speaking with people over his lives, for he had to teach himself to get information from people if he were to ever find his sister-sons. He could almost hear Gandalf laughing with delight and amusement. 

And so Thorin found a new obsession in the form of this boy’s original family and history. He was convinced this boy was somehow related to Kili’s incarnation in this life and Thorin was bound and determined to prove it and find his sister-son, and hopefully, hopefully, if the gods would finally smile at them and stop punishing the line of Durin, he would find Kili and with him Fili. 

Thorin used any and all options available to him, both legal, and illegal and those in between. He found the boy’s records and found the boy’s birth mother. 

Or rather her grave marker and story. And Thorin had felt his heart break all over again. 

The boy was not the mother’s first child. He was her third. She had birthed him late in her life.

She had two boys before him and they were soldiers by the time he was born.

Thorin had grown to hate wars, he used to believe there was nobility in fighting for what you believed in and a pride in dying in battle, but now the very word he loathed. 

The shock of losing both her elder sons to war had driven her mad. She had taken her own life and her husband his own shortly after which left the boy orphaned. to be adopted into a wealthy family which would lead to the boy’s adopted father sending him to Thorin’s office to break his heart again. 

Reports of the story were not enough for Thorin, he used his dubious connections until pictures of the two older brothers were found. 

He would remember the soft beep of an email arriving late into the night, and he would open the file and three pictures would be there. 

One of the brothers, young and carefree, Fili‘s hair, short and straight, Kili‘s a wild unkempt mass of curls; hanging onto each other. The other, both in uniform, now with buzz buts and ramrod postures. The third, of their grave markers. Side by side. 

That night, Thorin did not sleep. Did not move. He touched their faces and he wept. They were lost to him again, but they were together. They were finally together. And maybe, if they were together, they would find him as well. Some day. Some year. Some life. 

Those thoughts haunted him as he felt himself grow heavy, and he knew this was not the heaviness of sleep, but of death, and he knew that something was wrong, and that he would need to call for help, and the pain in his chest was not simply the pain of a heart broken, but he could not bear to look away from their pictures, and lamented that maybe next time, next time he would find them both. 

Happy and whole and together. 

 

*****

**_5) The Pilot_ **

Thorin found an irony in the fact this this incarnation loved the open skies when his original one would rather be in the stone. 

He had found himself driven to the career or commercial flight and the exposure it afforded him. For he liked to greet his passengers and speak with them, and it allowed him to see hundred upon hundreds of them. 

He felt in his heart that he would find them like this. And that they would be together. And so he flew. 

He flew from country to country, and made sure to look into the face of almost every passenger to enter his planes. He made sure to roam every city he would land in with the hopes that this would be the city that housed them, together. 

He refused to believe the gods made them find each other again only to tear them apart. 

And so every time he saw bright and dark hair together, his heart would leap, then crack, for it was not them. And one them, he had thought he had found them, laughing in the Business lounge with Gloin, only for it not to be so. 

With every disappointment, his heart would crack a little more, and his soul died a little more, and he knew he could not endure this much longer. 

He had endured lifetimes and even Mahal’s craft was not infinite. His heart felt like it had broken one too many times, and his soul felt like it had been seared one too many times, and Thorin knew, in his deepest parts that if he did not find them this time or the next, he would never find them, for he would be too broken to even try. 

He usually would make a point of greeting his passengers, but this was one flight where his thoughts were too dark to be welcoming and so he had sequestered himself in his cockpit and run through his checks and lists and waited for his crew to tell him they were ready. 

It was then that one of the stewardesses asked if a pair of brothers could see the cockpit, for the younger one was terrified since this was his first flight. She thought seeing the cockpit and pilot would put him at ease, specially since he was clutching a toy plane. 

Thorin refused her request, not in the mood to be indulging, and he pretended not to see the look of disappointment on her face not the crestfallen voices of children in the background. 

He prepared for take-off and headed for his destination, Rome. 

His thoughts and mood did not improve through the flight. The landing was not as smooth as he would have liked, the weather not cooperating. And he grumbled his way through his post-flight routine. 

Finally done, he disembarked with the rest of the crew and headed for the gate and exit only to see one of the flight attendants wave to a couple of children as they were whisked into another gate through the fast transit lane for their next flight, she commented that they were the ones who asked to see the cockpit and maybe the next captain would be kinder and Thorin froze. 

One child was golden haired, the other was dark haired. There was no mistaking that smile, nor those eyes. 

Half mad, heart thundering in his chest, Thorin tried to rush the security checks out of his own gate and into the gate to catch the children before their transit. 

His carry on beeped. 

His carry on beeped and he had to have it inspected and Thorin stood helpless as he watched the screens announce that the flight on the gate the children had been ushered through took off. 

He lost them. He had them on his flight. He had them on his flight, and they asked to come near him and he refused them. 

They were together, and alive, and he was with them in a metal giant for hours on end and he lost them. 

Spirit crushed, Thorin had retired from his career and the world. Living in solitude and self-imposed exile, he could not muster the drive to look for them, so broken was he by his near meeting. 

And so Thorin grew bitter, and tired, and did not speak anymore. He did not even hope anymore. 

No thoughts were in his mind, and for once he had not lamented that maybe next time, next time he would find them both. 

Happy and whole and together. 

 

*****

**_6) The Author_ **

This time, he did not venture into the world. Preferring to live in solitude with his words and maps. He wrote of his people’s histories, even though the people called them fiction, and he lived in them and through them and in his memories and through his memories.

He was told that he was famous, and his bank account reflected it, but Thorin refused to indulge in interviews or photo shoots or any sort of exposure, and to his dismay it only added to people’s obsession with him and his publications and he cursed the day he allowed his publicist to publish the histories. 

He had agreed to allow the work to be published only because for one brief moment he thought his neighbour was Bilbo, and had let him read the works, but it was not so. 

And so Thorin, hair long and pulled back, lived the hermit life, only to venture outside for his coffee. The coffee house conveniently located across the street from his apartment building. 

He had a routine, and he refused to break it, and even though his very being rebelled against it, he refused to look for his sister-sons. His heart and soul could not handle the agony of losing them again and again. 

His routine would started with him waking, usually at afternoon. He would then venture out, in his robe and pyjamas or house wear, and cross the street where he would grab his coffee and go back to his apartment where he would write on his type writer until he grew weary with the fatigue and memories and sorrow and sleep. 

Occasionally, he might remember to eat, or check his phone for messages from not-Bilbo. 

On one day; however, the memories were too much, for he wrote of Azanulbizar and sleep escaped him. He found himself staring out his window at the coffee house in the dawn hours as a young man opened for the day. 

Deciding to break the routine for once and get his cup early, Thorin made his way to the coffee house in his customary slippers, robe and night wear. He did not care that this was not the shift that was used to him, he simply wanted his coffee. 

And so he walked in and headed for the counter, frowning when he saw no one there. He could hear two voices from the inside towards the kitchen, one disgustingly bright and cheerful for so early in the morning and the other appropriately disgruntled for so early in the morning. 

He did not look up as he banged on the counter to get their attention, and he heard the voices come closer as they exited the kitchen and headed towards him. 

He did look up as he heard the crash of a metal container on the tiles and a voice whispered, “It’s you.” 

Thorin felt numb.

There were Kili and Fili. 

There were Kili and Fili and nothing separated them and Thorin in his slippers and robe but the glass fridge containing the day’s pastries. 

There were Fili and Kili, and they were looking at him. And they knew him as he knew them. 

He felt the tears, he felt the trembling of his limbs and then he felt them in his arms and he did not know who clutched whom harder as he simply wept the days, years, lives of pain away. 

They were here. They were in his arms. And he was never, never letting them go. 

Those thoughts strengthened him as he stood clutching both; he had found them both. 

Happy and whole and together.


End file.
